It is our mission to recognize the arts of the local culture as an artistic category distinct from the arts of commercial and non-profit entertainment. It is essential to their growth and sustainability that these arts be evaluated and funded as an independent artistic sector.
With the rapid decline of its steel industry, a remarkable transformation occurred in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In Bethlehem Steel’s wake, over thirty cultural non-profits sprang to life. A Steel town became an Arts town.
This grassroots study of cultural placemaking in small city America is based on Bethlehem’s cultural transition and on a series of Mellon Foundation funded interviews of some forty artists, presenters, and citizens who were directly active in the city’s forty-year transformation.
Based on these interviews and a set of public meetings, our study of the local culture first produced a series of essays and three central conclusions about local art communities in small cities.
1. The local arts are dominated by two independent artistic sectors. They are the arts of the local culture and the arts of the local economy.
2. Our study focuses expressly on the arts of the local culture which we define as those art activities and services rooted in local history, regional demographics , creative businesses, and the resident arts community.
3. It is basic to the health and survival of the arts of the local culture that these arts be evaluated and funded by their own non-financial, values-based standards.
These conclusions have in turn inspired an expansion of our project into a set of model programs created to test the range and sustainability of the resident arts community and the arts of the local culture in action.
Based on our interviews, public meetings, and models, our study climaxes in Best Practices in Cultural Placemaking. This document, with its lists of contributions to community life,defines the essential elements of a healthy local culture.
